Public Presentation
by Clovache
Summary: Inflictions. He speaks louder and slower on the weightier words, the ones his companion should really notice. M/M, Joker/Batman


Disclaimer: The Joker and Batsy/Bruce Wayne are the products of better minds than mine. I make no money from this fiction.

xxx

On a rooftop. Any skyscraper. Their scene is the night.

"It's nights like _these_-" he pauses, and sweeps his arms wide. Grandeur. "…" Another pause. Licks his lips- tongue flicking out to moisten the scars at the edges. Begins again. "Nights like _these_where you just feel so…so _inspired_." Inflictions. He speaks louder and slower on the weightier words, the ones his companion should really notice. "Don'cha just feel…_inspired_, Batsy?"

"Enough games."

He giggles; high pitched, wheezy. Maybe a little wet in the lungs. "_Games_? Hee, hee hee! Oh, Batman, you-"

"Why did you bring me here?" He growls. The green haired man across from him is still giggling, it wears his patience very thin, very quickly. Soon the thin line holding him to his last rule might snap, that twine of meat and morals. That might be what the other man's counting on.

But it just as easily might not be.

"You brought yourself, Bats," In the break between sentences he licks his lips again. It's more frustrating than anything. "_Always_bringing yourself to me…You come whenever I call, everytime…"

Short. That tendon of temporary peace is ever fraying. "That's because you threaten people, you hide bombs in buildings, you-"

"You _always_ come-"

"-guns, knives, machetes-"

"-you know, I-"

"-I won't let you endanger innocent people-"

"-really, _re-he-ally_, think-"

"-while I'm around-"

"-we're destined to do this _forever-_"

Neither one is listening to the other, at least, not for anything more than words. Nothing behind the face value of the simple, interrupted sentences that are flying like arrows from a madman's mouth to a vigilante's ears.

He growls, low and rough in his throat. His day's been rough. They've mistaken him for a murderer again.

Low whistle. "Isn't it _be-yuu-ti-full_?" A click of his tongue. "_So beautiful_…when you're looking _down_ on it." Turns and smiles- unnatural, even with good intentions. His lips are stretched and mangled. He probably smiles too often for it to be anything more than a cheap gesture, anyway. "How _does_ it feel? For them to be looking down on you, for once? Isn't this much…better?"

He's gotten his companion's attention: there's actual listening going on now. Trying to dig into the meaning behind the words.

Grin.

Hook.

There's a hook in the Bat's frowning mouth. The Joker will pull it. Reel him in.

"Do you…" Licks his lips, the smacking sound less irritating, more natural. Background music. "Don't you _mind it_? Why do you let them just…look down on you?" Waves his hand towards the city. Eye contact, eye contact, still, it's maintained. "They're only beautiful, only_worth_ looking at from wa-a-ay up here…I can't _imagine_ what it's like to be down there, in the thick of it, day…after day." Dead. Serious. Sympathetic, too. "And I really pity," sly "_anybody_ who can. _Anybody_ who…can't have a _taste_ of _this_." Voice goes low. Not begging to be hit, but similar. "But they don't pity _us,_oh no. We pity_them_. In a sense, doesn't that make me..._merciful_?" Head thrown back, there's a smile on his face. A laugh in his throat. "The pity thing, I mean. I'd still kill them all"

The laugh, the last line, they may have marred his point but the hook is there. Tug tug- line.

"You're not merciful." Halting growls, this time. He speaks in halting growls, lower than before. "You're a murderer. And I'm not going to stop until I bring you down."

He shrieks with laughter, joyous, bouncing: if grown men did indeed do such things.

"_You were listening_," he croons, licks his lips again. It's more arousing by this point than anything else.

Motionless, he's waiting. The madman elaborates:

"_We're destined to do this forever_."

Sinker.

The Batman smiles.

All this time they've been coming closer…and before the scene ends, they kiss.

The curtain drops.

They kiss _again._


End file.
